Saturday, November 26, 2011

A U Susie Q...

While facebook and twitter provide a wonderful opportunity for us to connect with inspiring young women across the world... chatting in person always seems more precious in life. Luckily, we get this opportunity quite often through community connections with the local fashion colleges, sharing our experience and knowledge with some of the young girls studying fashion!

Recently I was able to be on a trend forecasting panel, alongside several other women (a designer, costume curator and fashion blogger) discussing various forecasting roles in fashion. Yet, while our purpose is often to fuel their fire, it equally builds our enthusiasm in return through the open ended opportunity and vision held by each girl!

Susie Q is one of those young gals I got to chat with after the presentation, not only taking on a complete course load full force, but developing her own design company along the way! Hope her work above inspires you as much as it did myself!

A little chit chat with Susie:

ME: Who has been the biggest influence in your life?

SQ: My biggest influence has definitely been my mom, she is a go-getting, loving, giving, athletic, bread-winning superwoman! She has taught me to love nature, traveling, animals, good food, and to surf. Without her I would not be who I am today.

ME: When did you first dream up the idea to start your own company?

SQ: My dream first started in 5th grade when I wanted to own my own boardshop. In high school I started cookin’ up all these different names for a clothing brand, but that was put on the back burner as I went on to study different majors in college. In 2009, I was influenced by a close friend to follow my passions. & here I am living my dream, studying textiles & fashion at CSULB, and trying to grow my company AU Gold Clothing! Life couldn't be better.

ME: What would be your dream magazine to get editorial in?

SQ: I would have to say WWD or Vogue because they are the Queen of trends. But I totally dig Juxtapoz’s style, if they added a fashion category I would love to get a spread in their raw, artistic magazine.

ME: What has been the biggest challenge so far? How do you overcome it?

SQ: The biggest challenge is probably not having the resources and the know-how. There are so many areas I want to touch on in my business, for example, cultivating eco-friendly natural fibers and using ethical business practices to produce the garments; but I don’t have the knowledge, time, or resources to do so at the moment, just a hope & a dream. I’m not super worried though, because I know everything will come in time.

ME: What’s your favorite sunshine activity?

SQ: Ooo, I love anything and everything under the sun, but I’m going with a hike down to the beach and a nice, chill surf session with some good friends. A game of beach volleyball is a definite bonus.